My mom gave me this advice years ago when Computer Boy was an out of control crazy little boy. I was reminded of this advice this morning when I received a comment on my last blog post about “Disrespectful Little Brat or Over-Stimulated [...]

One of my brothers (you know who you are), was a very active little boy, a lot like two of mine. My mom told me that she was able to calm him down simply by helping him recognize when he was getting out of control. When he was getting overstimulated and falling out of control, all she had to do was help him see when it was started to stop it in it’s tracks.

When Computer Boy was around 4 or 5, I noticed him beginning to roll down the mountain of craziness. There was certain wild look in his eyes that told me he was getting over stimulated. Before he could gain too much momentum, I pulled him aside and asked him how he felt. His words spoke everything. With his arm spinning in a big circle he said, “The world is going faster, faster, faster, fasterfasterfaster!”

Whoa.

Later when he had calmed down, I talked with him. I asked him if he remembered how he felt when the world was going faster. He did. I asked him if he liked that feeling. Surprisingly he said no. I thought he might answer different because when he was wild like that, he always seemed super happy. I then asked him when he starts feeling like that, could he calm himself down? He said he thought he could. I told him he was in control of himself and if he wanted to slow down, he could.

From then on out, as soon as I saw the wild look, I could just ask him if he could calm himself down and he would. He would usually close his eyes, take a deep breath, and just slow himself down.

I didn’t really need this technique with the next two kids. Ninja boy is definitely on the wild side but he never really lost control like Computer Boy did. Tiger Boy is my calm child (relatively speaking, he’s still very much an active boy). Dragon Boy? Let’s just say with Computer Boy we started off with and bang and with Dragon Boy we went out with a bang.

I want to share with you a little experience I had with Dragon Boy at a concert not too long ago.

Don’t you love it when your parenting skills are called into question in a very public way? That’s kind of what happened. We took the boys to a concert, Stolen Silver (who was awesome!) and Gary Sinise and the Lt. Dan Band. We had fun. So much fun. Dancing, singing, running around. There were lots of other kids there and it was a great family experience. The picture above is us dancing before things went awry.

But something happens to Dragon Boy in these kind of situations. I should have seen it coming and taken measure to prevent what was coming but I didn’t. Lots of noise, lots of movement, lots of people, lots of a lot of craziness. It’s over stimulating and almost always leads to something not so great happening. I should have seen the wild look in his eyes and taken him outside. Life is full of should haves.

It started with Dragon Boy running up full blast and punching me in the butt. Totally unacceptable. He wasn’t doing it to be mean, he was just very amped up and decided that was the fun thing to do. Second time I caught him and told him I did not like that and if he did it again, we would have to leave.

I thought we were doing good since he decided to just run laps around the bleachers and leave me alone. But about 5 minutes after the butt punching talk, I felt an empty can of soda hit me in the back. The little stinker decided throwing an empty can of soda at me in front of a bleacher full of people would be awesome.

I could feel the judgmental eyes boring holes in me. Everyone thinking, “I wonder what she’s going to do” or “I hope that little brat gets what’s coming to him”. Heck, back BC (before children), I would have thought the same thing. I even heard someone say “Ooh, he’s gonna get it” as we walked by.

What did I do? First I took him away from all those drilling eyes. Second, I took a few deep breaths. I was mad and jerking him around, yelling, spanking wasn’t going to do either of us any good. At this point, he still didn’t even realize he had done something bad and any punishment would have been confusing.

I tried talking to him but he was still very very wound up. He wasn’t ignoring me, he was just overly stimulated and couldn’t hear me. I had him sit on my lap until I could feel him relax. When he could look me in the eyes, then I talked to him.

We did go back to the concert. Best situation would have been to leave then but I didn’t want to punish the other boys for Dragon Boy being over stimulated. We sat at the back, no more running around, just listening to the music.

So What Exactly is This Post About

The reason I wanted to share this experience is because maybe it will help someone change perspective. This situation wasn’t about Dragon Boy’s behavior, it was about what he was experiencing. Sometimes when we are able to back up and see things from the outside, we can see what is causing certain behaviors. Kids don’t like having temper tantrums, they aren’t trying to be naughty. They aren’t thinking, “What can I do to really tick Mom off?” There is always a reason behind these behaviors and when we can see that, many times we can fix it without yelling, without spanking, without getting mad. And if we can’t change the situation, at least we can understand.

“You child isn’t giving you a hard time, your child is having a hard time.”

Doing laundry for 6 people, especially when 5 of the 6 people are dirty, stinky boys, is a daunting task. I wrote a little about how I keep sane with my laundry routine here: Taming the Laundry Beast. I’ll do whatever I can to make the laundry process easier.

Doing laundry for 6 people, especially when 5 of the 6 people are dirty, stinky boys, is a daunting task. I wrote a little about how I keep sane with my laundry routine here: Taming the Laundry Beast. I’ll do whatever I can to make the laundry process easier.

I’m not anal about many things but there are a few. My closet is indeed arranged by color according to Roy G. Biv. And the hangers have to be white or my brain will explode. The cord on my hair dryer and immersion blender have to be wrapped just so to avoid kinking the cord. I only care about those two devices because they are the only two things I have complete control over (Lord help Husbeast when he uses either of them and puts them away incorrectly). And folding clothes or towels. My skin crawls when the towels are folded wrong. It seriously gives me the heebie jeebies.

While I will hold onto my first two obsessions with all that I can because they are mine and mine alone, the third I’m learning (very difficultly) to let go of. I can’t fold all the clothes and towels in the house, keep them neatly folded until they are used again, and keep my sanity at the same time.

(In case anyone is wondering, the only correct way to fold a towel is to stand up holding the narrow corners. Fold in thirds. Then in half and in half again. Don’t try arguing with me, there is no other correct way.)

So today, I’m going to talk about folding. Or rather, not folding.

Things I’ve stopped folding:

Underwear. Really? Does anyone care if your underwear are wrinkled. This was my first step in overcoming my folding obsession. I could not argue with the futility of folding underwear.

Pajamas. Again, who cares if your pajamas are wrinkled. Your husband? Probably not. The only pajamas they notice are the lack of pajamas.

Kitchen Towels and washcloths. Stuff them in a nice cloth basket. Easy Peasy. Even though I really couldn’t care less if my bath or hand towels are wrinkled, they do take up considerably less room if they are folded neatly (and look nice on my shelf or hanging on a rod). So those do get folded.

Children’s cloths. Period. At first I balked at the thought of not folding their clothes but then I pictured what their drawers looked like anyway. Previously folded clothes, now mostly unfolded and stuffed in a drawer. I could supervise them putting away clothes but, yeah, that’s not going to happen. If we need wrinkle free clothes, they get ironed. Just like before when I was folding them only to have them wadded up in a drawer. I tell my older boys, if they want wrinkle free clothes, they can fold them themselves.

Fitted sheets. I’ve seen videos going around showing how to fold them neatly. I’ve even seen a video on how to iron … IRON, and fold a fitted sheet. I don’t have the time, space, or an ounce of desire to do it that way. Here is my simple method. Wad it up and shove it in a pillow case. In case that description isn’t enough, here is a video on how to do it (kind of my video response to those other videos). You’re welcome.

We usually do a little science experiment every week (sometimes more, sometimes less). We were reading about center of mass (or center of gravity) today and the suggested experiment looked quick and easy, and we had all the materials. Those are the 3 key factors for us to do experiments. We save the more complicated [...]

]]>We usually do a little science experiment every week (sometimes more, sometimes less). We were reading about center of mass (or center of gravity) today and the suggested experiment looked quick and easy, and we had all the materials. Those are the 3 key factors for us to do experiments. We save the more complicated ones for special occasions or homeschool co-op days. I thought a good way to chronicle our experiments would be to post about them.

This one was so simple, the big boys all poo-pooed it so Tiger Boy (7) and Dragon Boy (4) were my assistants. Of course as we were really getting into it, the big boys noticed we were having fun and decided to kind of join in (i.e., watch from the sidelines and offer suggestions/criticism).

Our mission today was to find the center of mass for an unusually shaped, flat object. Technically we are finding the geographical center since this is a 2D object (not 3D). The geographical center of North America is supposed pretty close to us. I wonder if this is how they figured it out. We might have to trace a map of North America and try it out

We also talked about why this is important and how it’s applied (examples were balancing acts with multiple people, riding a bike, doing handstands, touching your toes like in the video).

Step 2: Gather materials

cardboard or stock (nothing too flimsy, a side of a cereal box will do)

pencil

scissors

hole punch

string

nail

Step 3: Draw an unusual shape on your cardboard. Here is Tiger Boy’s creation. The first shape was a little small so I asked him to draw as big of a shape as he could fit on the page. And then we cut it out.

Step 3: Hypothesis! I asked Tiger Boy where he thought the center was and then we marked it boldly.

Step 4: Punch 2 holes not directly opposite from each other. 90 degree angle from your proposed center would be good. (Our experiment said to do 4 holes but 2 well placed holes are all that is really needed).

Step 5: Hang on the wall. We utilized a hole that was already in the wall. Take your sting and tie a loop on one end and something to weight it down on the other end. This is a great opportunity to explain what a plumb line is.

Step 6: Draw a line along the plumb line. Repeat for second hole. Where the lines meet will be the center of mass. Tiger Boy was pretty stinkin’ close.

Step 7: Balance the blob where the lines intersect on your finger tip.

He excitedly pulls me over to the table to show me his orange “coloration”. Instead of trying to figure out what the picture is, I like to ask him to tell me about it. This is the story of Dragon Boy’s orange coloration.

He excitedly pulls me over to the table to show me his orange “coloration”. Instead of trying to figure out what the picture is, I like to ask him to tell me about it. This is the story of Dragon Boy’s orange coloration.

“It’s a gun. There was guy, he was a bad guy… a zombie… a giant… in space, in a spaceship. And he dropped the gun and it dropped dropped dropped to earth. Then it hit a mountain, then water comed in the earth. And it made the earth flood.”

All that with one little mandarin orange. I wonder if this is how legends are created.

]]>http://www.noisecoveredindirt.com/orange-coloration/feed/0http://www.noisecoveredindirt.com/orange-coloration/A Day in the Life of This Homeschool Familyhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NoiseCoveredInDirt/~3/_zbz6_reW7o/
http://www.noisecoveredindirt.com/day-life-homeschool-family/#commentsMon, 19 May 2014 21:31:51 +0000http://www.noisecoveredindirt.com/?p=649

I get asked a lot how our homeschool day goes so I thought I would just put it all in a post for an easy place to direct people to.

6am: Rise and shine! I jump out of bed with a smile on my face. Take a shower, get dressed and am ready to [...]

I get asked a lot how our homeschool day goes so I thought I would just put it all in a post for an easy place to direct people to.

6am: Rise and shine! I jump out of bed with a smile on my face. Take a shower, get dressed and am ready to go.

6:30: Devotion with my coffee. Gotta start the day right!

7am: Wake up kids and have breakfast. You know, the usually, bacon, eggs, and a stack of pancakes. We’ll do our family devotion during this time before Husbeast heads off to work at 7:30.

8am (after the kitchen is cleaned and the dishes put in the dishwasher which I unloaded the night before):We start with math drills. Great way to get the brain going. I do them too.

9am: Phone rings but I ignore it. It is school time after all. We break for chores. Best to get them done early rather than later.

……

Ok, now all of my friends who know me in real life are on the floor crying because they are laughing so hard. Yeah, that’s not even close to what my day actually looks like. No offense to those whose days do resemble the above. More power to ya!

Reality

7:30: Husbeast comes into the bedroom to say good-bye for the day. I roll over and wave.

7:40: Since Husbeast woke me, I can’t go back to sleep so I drag myself out of bed and stumble to the Keurig. Thank God for the Keurig. I don’t know how I survived in years past without my 2 minute coffee.

7:42: Stumble to the couch with my coffee. Open my computer and look through Facebook, opening articles to read later when I’m actually awake. Once the caffeine has hit my bloodstream, I’ll open my email and start reading articles.

7:43: Notice Ninja Boy (11) is already up and doing his math. He obviously doesn’t take after me.

8:30: Ninja Boys says, “Mom, come on, let’s get going on school!” Seriously, where did this kid come from? Me, “Your brothers aren’t awake yet. We’ll do the rest of the stuff when they are up. Why don’t you read for now.”

9am: Holy crap! How did it get so late in the morning already?! 2 of the kids are still asleep so I just keep doing what I’m doing. I saw a hilarious video of cats harassing dogs.

9:30: Tiger Boy (7) wakes up. Ninja Boy is happy because we can get some more school done. Once Tiger Boy blinks the sleep out of his eyes, we review our Classical Conversations stuff and talk about/look up anything they have questions about.

10am: Ok, my conscience is getting to me. 3 kids are awake. Time to wake the teen, eat breakfast and do something productive.

11am: He finally wakes up (yeah, I didn’t wake him, got distracted by the phone).

12pm: Eat breakfast…err, lunch.

12:30: Ok, seriously guys, we gotta get some stuff done. Everyone get your math out! Math drills really are a great way to get your brain going. I should have done math drills instead of staring at Facebook.

1pm: Language Arts/ Grammar time (yes, I sing Hammer Time every time I say it). Each boys has their own binder with different sections. Kind of like this http://www.halfahundredacrewood.com/2013/05/our-classical-notebook.html. We use dry erase markers on page protectors so I’m not printing off a million sheets of paper a week. Love it!

2pm: Science. We’ll do a mish-mash of different things. First reading out of our science book (we are currently using Answers in Genesis which I love!) and then we’ll find extra stuff online, usually videos, to further expand what we read earlier. Or sometimes not.

3pm: History. Similar to science, we first read a section in our history curriculum (Story of the World), verbally go over the questions and look up things online or in books to expand on what we learned.

4pm: Yikes! How did it get so late? Well, we got the basics covered. Time to let the beasts loose to do as they please.

4:30: Call back the troops because I forgot to tell them to do their chores earlier. Much groaning ensues.

5pm: Whoops! I forgot to have the boys read on their own for 30 mins (a challenging book of their choosing).

Ok, so that example might be a bit of an exaggeration (or not). But I do have more days like that than I would care to have. So what is the point of this blog post? To make all of you other homeschoolers feel better about not being the perfect homeschooling family. You’re welcome.

Oh and before ya’ll think Ninja Boy is some genius child addicted to school, he just knows he’s not allowed to play Minecraft until school is done.

One thing I’ve been wanting to do with this blog for a while is to share a weekly devotional. The thing is, I’m not very good at being serious. I guess I could do a goofy devotional, but I just haven’t felt it yet.

One thing I’ve been wanting to do with this blog for a while is to share a weekly devotional. The thing is, I’m not very good at being serious. I guess I could do a goofy devotional, but I just haven’t felt it yet.

So I called on Husbeast who is much better at this sort of thing than me. I’m going to bug him to try to get him to write a quick devotional every week. He’s crazy busy working insane hours, getting his master’s degree, and spending every remaining moment he can being the best dad possible, so I’m not sure how often he’ll be able to post something. We’ll try.

Here is Husbeast…

My kids are astounding people. They all amaze, impress and teach me whenever we interact. And our littlest boy is such a joy. He is everything I want to be when I grow up. Kind, innocent, guiless and tender. The other night he was on the couch with his brother watching a Spiderman movie where a bad guy with robot octopus arms was throwing bags of coins at people and trying to drop people off of a building for Spiderman to web save her. He kept covering his eyes whenever the bad man was on the screen and it struck me that maybe he is wiser than myself. “Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.” Phil 4:5 How, oh how do we achieve a state like that, in a world like this? A great start on this path is just a few verses later.

Philippians 4:8 says, “8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Ouch! When was the last time we sat and talked about something that is noble, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy? What we play on Netflix or TV (to include the commercials playing in between “what you’re watching”) also counts such things we think about. If a guest in your home was vulgar, violent and profane in front of your children would you confront them? Yet, many of us would accept entirely different things if it’s on TV. Take a look at the loose list below and see where you’d fall closest as a center of what you talk or read or post about.

You may even want to change the order of a couple lines but let’s try to exist near the noble side as much as possible. If we’re honest we all can probably admit that we are often all over the spectrum above. Yet TV and movies are usually less variable (Especially on Sunday mornings for some people!) But as iron sharpens iron let’s encourage each other, set an example and change the tune from our mouths and in our homes.

We get many comments when we take out troops out in public all together. Some are funny and do make me laugh. “Starting your own football team?” Some make me smile, “I raised 5 boys too. Boys are such a joy!”

We get many comments when we take out troops out in public all together. Some are funny and do make me laugh. “Starting your own football team?” Some make me smile, “I raised 5 boys too. Boys are such a joy!”

Some make me think, “Did you really just say that in front of my children?” This isn’t meant to be a rant post but rather a “think before you speak” post. I did address this in my post 10 Things to Never Say to Moms of Boys but this one in particular I think needs extra attention.

The things that strangers say that bothers me the most is “So, trying for a girl?” I know you are not meaning to be offensive (or I hope so) but I don’t find this funny or appropriate, especially in front of my children. It belittles who they are. Kids are great at connecting the dots and saying that will likely lead to them thinking we don’t want him because he’s a boy, especially #3 and 4. They might think we were disappointed when they were born because they weren’t our longed for daughter.

Let me clear the air for everyone. I have 4 boys because I wanted 4 children. If we had had 1 boy and then 1 girl, we still would have had 2 more children. Boy or girl does not matter.

I like surprises but chose to have ultrasounds with all of my children because I didn’t want others to be disappointed at their birth. I knew I would be over joyed meeting my child for the first time, boy or girl, but I didn’t trust others to be as joyful and that made me sad. I didn’t want their birth to be clouded with disappointment. I know most of my wonderful family would be truly happy and some at the very least would fein joy but I would still feel the disappointment in the air.

I saw a TV show once where a mom of many boys (I believe there were at least 6) was pregnant and the ultrasound showed a girl. But they were wrong and she birthed another boy. The mom was crazy with grief and wouldn’t even hold the child. What kind of mother bases her love for her children on whether they are a boy or a girl?! What did that show her other children? I had to turn it off, I was so mad. And this was before I had my own houseful of boys. Maybe she reconciled her feelings at the end but no child should enter the world unwanted like that.

If we decide to have more children, there is a high chance it’ll be another boy and I’m fine with that. Apparently we don’t make girls and I’ve accepted that. Heck, if I have a girl, I’d get booted from the Moms of Boys club. I’d have to buy all new clothes, very few hand me downs (I admit, I see that more as a plus than a minus). It’d be a pretty big paradigm shift for me. All I know is boy. And I have to admit, girls kind of scare me, especially teenage girls. I was one.

Even if someone were actually trying for a girl, it’s not something you bring up. In most cases I’m sure the family loves each and every one of their blessings whether they are a girl or a boy. Even if the mom or dad were disappointed in not having a girl, chances are they are not disappointed in the child they did have. And planting those thoughts in the child is not very thoughtful. If they are a good parent, they would keep those feelings to themselves and not want them aired in front of their children.

Please don’t ask a mom that question. And of course, this goes for moms of only girls as well.

I hear many people bring their kids home to homeschool because their kids were bullied in school. Sadly, bullying can happen even in a homeschool situation. We’ve actually been dealing with this more than I would like. With 4 boys, it’s easy for 2 or 3 to gang up on one. Yes, I’m there [...]

I hear many people bring their kids home to homeschool because their kids were bullied in school. Sadly, bullying can happen even in a homeschool situation. We’ve actually been dealing with this more than I would like. With 4 boys, it’s easy for 2 or 3 to gang up on one. Yes, I’m there to intervene but I would rather it not happen at all. I want them to treat each other with respect when I’m there and when I’m not.

My super, amazing, awesome, really cool friend told me about this idea she got from Pinterest. Use a crumpled piece of paper to teach about treating other people with respect, not to bully and just plain treat each other right. Sometimes I’m astounded by the sheer awesomeness of some people. Who comes up with this stuff? Just amazing.

So I gathered the boys together and gave each of them a perfectly crisp piece of paper. Then I told them to crumple it up into a ball to which they happily obliged. They crumpled it, stomped on it, sat on it, threw it across the room, and mashed them into oblivion. They were more than happy to do their worst to their poor piece of paper.

Next I asked them to smooth it out. They smoothed it out on the table, tightly pulled it along the edge, one of them even ran it under water to try to smooth out the wrinkles (which thankfully didn’t really work either).

Then I asked them, “Is it fixed? Is it like it was when I first gave it to you?” Nope, not even close.

“Ok, now say you’re sorry.” Which they all did, in a silly mocking way.

“Did that make it better?”

“No.” Of course not, it didn’t fix anything.

“How about if you say it like you really really mean it?”

They gave it their best, some very heartfelt apologies. They are surprisingly good actors.

Nope, the paper was still a horribly marred mess.

“What did make it better?”

Smoothing it out did make it better than a crumpled up ball. So action, doing something, did help.

“Is the paper like it was before you crumpled it up into a ball?”

No. It’s scarred. It will never be the same.

“So what can we do to keep from scarring the paper?”

Aah, don’t crumple it up in the first place.

The same goes for our relationships with others. If you are mean to someone, say something bad, call them a name, even hurt them physically, it’s like crumpling them up into a ball. You can apologize but that doesn’t fix what you did. You can pick them up, give them a hug, do whatever you can to make them feel better and that might really help. But there will still be scars. When they see you, they’ll be reminded of how you treated them before.